FLORENCE — Remember that old saw your grandmother told about putting a little bit away every day/week/month and how one day you’d be surprised with just how much you’d saved?
The City of Florence knows just what grandma meant.
Years of charging customers a tiny, almost unnoticeable monthly fee for rollout garbage carts — it’s just 75 cents — has left the city with a rather large surplus in its rollout garbage cart replacement fund. At Monday’s Florence City Council meeting, city leaders decided to put it to good use.
They’re going to buy a couple of really big garbage carts with it.
Specifically, the city is going to purchase two new residential service garbage trucks. The trucks cost something on the order of $250,000 each (exact prices will be known after the purchase is put out to bid). Because the build up from the monthly cart fees has resulted in what city leaders are calling a surplus of more than $500,000, the city will be able to purchase the new trucks without borrowing money, raising taxes or delaying other capital needs in the waste disposal area.
“It just seemed to make sense,” said City Manager Drew Griffin. “The money was there and we’re being very careful to spend it on the same sort of expense. This will benefit our residential service.”
Griffin said the city had forecast a need for four new trucks several years ago when it was putting together a capital needs list for the 4-millage tax incease passed by council. The city didn’t wind up using all 4 mills because a property re-evaluation increased the value of property in the city, but it would probably have to use it to buy the trucks if it didn’t switch the rollout cart money to a truck purchase program.
The city’s cart-fee has been in place for more than 15 years. It has done it’s job: city residents have had their carts replaced every 5-7 years, depending upon wear and tear.
The city buys the carts in bulk, keeping a restocking supply of 100-200 on hand at its public works yard on the east side of town. Each new cart costs between $50-55. The variety stems from changes in bids over time.
With a resident paying 75 cents a month, or $9 a year, that works out to a new cart every 5.5 years. Griffin said because some carts aren’t replaced that often, and because the city has, at times, acquired carts for a lower price over the years, the fund has built up.
The city has also increased the number of residential customers served. There are now about 14,000 in the city.
Their cart fees produce about $125,000 per year. The city rarely spends more than $100,000 a year on new carts.
“We have managed this money pretty well,” Griffin said.
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